Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Comparing conclusions


From Time magazine, December 31, 1965
If the nation has economic problems, they are the problems of high employment, high growth and high hopes. As the U.S. enters what shapes up as the sixth straight year of expansion, its economic strategists confess rather cheerily that they have just about reached the outer limits of economic knowledge. They have proved that they can prod, goad and inspire a rich and free nation to climb to nearly full employment and unprecedented prosperity. The job of maintaining expansion without inflation will require not only their present skills but new ones as well. Perhaps the U.S. needs another, more modern Keynes to grapple with the growing pains, a specialist in keeping economies at a healthy high. But even if he comes along, he will have to build on what he learned from John Maynard Keynes.
 
From the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, November/December 1998:
I am sure rigorous economic research of the kind Homer Jones advocated, directed, promoted, and carried out will be essential to developing and adopting policies to raise productivity growth and achieve such a goal. We need a new Homer Jones to help us find policies for economic growth just as we were lucky to have had the original Homer Jones to help us find policies for economic stability.
 

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